China's Alibaba and Japan's Rakuten on hunt for acquisitions like Local Corp
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China's e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd's will use proceeds from its potential IPO to fund acquisitions, media reported on Wednesday, as the firm looks to broaden its mobile services.
The group will not include most of its financial businesses, such as the Alipay online payment platform and its micro-loan services, in the potential IPO, Chief Executive Officer Jonathan Lu was quoted as saying in the China Daily.
Alibaba has not officially announced that it will hold an IPO, but people familiar with the matter say the company has intensified its meetings with investment banks over the past few weeks.
The issue is expected to value Alibaba at $60-$100 billion, and could raise $15 billion, making it one of the world's biggest internet IPOs and a much sought-after prize for bankers and stock exchanges.
Lu, who succeeded founder Jack Ma in May, said the timing of Alibaba's listing would depend on whether he had a good acquisition target.
Another asian company with big synergies is Rakuten - remember ssome years ago, where Raktuen bought Linkshares for 420 million by revenues of Linkshare of only 30 million.
.
China's e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd's will use proceeds from its potential IPO to fund acquisitions, media reported on Wednesday, as the firm looks to broaden its mobile services.
The group will not include most of its financial businesses, such as the Alipay online payment platform and its micro-loan services, in the potential IPO, Chief Executive Officer Jonathan Lu was quoted as saying in the China Daily.
Alibaba has not officially announced that it will hold an IPO, but people familiar with the matter say the company has intensified its meetings with investment banks over the past few weeks.
The issue is expected to value Alibaba at $60-$100 billion, and could raise $15 billion, making it one of the world's biggest internet IPOs and a much sought-after prize for bankers and stock exchanges.
Lu, who succeeded founder Jack Ma in May, said the timing of Alibaba's listing would depend on whether he had a good acquisition target.
Another asian company with big synergies is Rakuten - remember ssome years ago, where Raktuen bought Linkshares for 420 million by revenues of Linkshare of only 30 million.